Still Popping Off on "Art!"

Yeah, I've been thinking about this "great art thing" (see previous two posts). I grew up in a family of common folk, folks who in their own ways were secretly "aspiring artists." A few of us were always painting, writing, drawing, reading, playing music, watching and discussing art and artful things. Lots of disagreement and heated arguments about art, what was good, what was bad, what it was all about.

These long-running arguments seemed important. Essential. Life and death. Everything. They were ways to define ourselves, to declare a certain code and belief system. Now I have a much more expansive view of it. I love all these figures. But then, early in my life, I had to choose, and defend, and fight for my opinion, fight to have a voice, to be heard. Fight to be right.

There were a some iconic figures: Picasso, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Shakespeare, Samual Beckett, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neil, Mark Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, Robert Louis Stevenson, Howard Hawks, John Huston, David Lean.

Then there were the usurpers: De Kooning, Pollock, Warhol, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Dylan, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Sam Shepard, Ken Kesey, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, John Cage, Velvet Underground, Martin Scorcese, Francis Coppola, Robert Altman, Sam Peckinpah, Jean Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Louis Malle.

I grew up in the Pop Culture explosion: Sex, Drugs, R&R! It became clear what spoke to me was totally personal, like falling in love. And what I loved didn't necessarily travel. How do you convince someone who doesn't feel the love, to feel the love? Love in the first moments feels like forever. And then surprisingly it can fade, never be erased, but can fade away.

So this is a long-winded way of saying, yes, all of these artists are valid. They are part of the great canon of art. They all featured in our family discussions about art. "What's art? What's good? What's bad? Who cares?"

All these figures spoke to us; my little family. We argued, and implored and dismissed, and got angry with each other over who was great and who was not, who was right, who was wrong. But really, all of these figures speak to us right? They all enrich us. Each and every one. And those long-ago arguments, heated conversations seem sort of silly now.

It's all pretty damn ephemeral. Just like everything else. What's good, what's bad? What lasts? Who matters? Who knows? Who decides? It's all up to us. We are the authorities. Each and every one of us.

And what may speak to us today,  may not speak to us tomorrow. What we love today, we may not love tomorrow. And what we thought was so damn important then, doesn't seem quite as important now.  No, that's not quite right, it is important, all of it, the particulars define us, the choices we made, the choices we make, they are important, but the heated arguments, the wanting to be right, the trying to prove the other person wrong, the trying to invalidate the other's choices, that is silly, funny, hilarious in it's own way. I mean, like, really funny that.